


Welcome Home

by Annie46fic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Challenge Response, Drabble, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-02
Updated: 2011-07-02
Packaged: 2017-10-20 23:09:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/218098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annie46fic/pseuds/Annie46fic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam comes back</p>
            </blockquote>





	Welcome Home

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote a coda for Provenance as part of Livejournal's summer_sam_love celebration and several people requested Sam/Sarah – so here it is!!

When her father died Sarah Blake became owner of an art dealers she didn’t want.

With it also came responsibility, long hours and an almost permanent headache and she felt as if she were losing her youth and vitality, her lust for life and, most of all, her sanity.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if she had, had someone to share it all with but it had been over four years since she had attempted a serious relationship and over five years since she had met (and lost) the love of her life.

Now, well after midnight, she hunched over her dad’s old laptop and tried to make sense of his figures. She realized, from the get go, that the business was not making as much as it should and there were cutbacks to be made. Trouble was, she didn’t know where to cut back and she didn’t know how. It was a problem with no solution and she was tired, jaded and plum worn out.

****

It was a nice neighborhood but that didn’t mean Sarah wasn’t used to the occasional bum or drunk loitering outside the gallery. It was nearly two am in the morning and she was exhausted and ready for bed but, as she poured herself a glass of jack from the fridge, she glanced out of the window and saw the tall figure standing under a flickering streetlamp and nearly jumped out of her skin.

She reached for the phone and began to punch out the numbers but her fingers froze and her breath caught in her throat as the figure moved further into the light and she heard herself whispering madly.

'It can’t be, it just can’t be.'

He was tall; she always knew that but now he seemed bigger, wider, muscle showing under the thin material of his gray t-shirt, thighs taut beneath the faded denim of his shabby and patched jeans. She remembered him as being wiry, sinewy, almost gangly and she rubbed her eyes thinking they might be deceiving her.

His hair was much longer, brushing his shoulders, curling against his high-boned face. She could see that there was stubble on his chin but it was too dark to see his features, too dark to be really, truly sure.

She took a breath, heart pounding and opened the door just a touch. The safety chain was on but she didn’t feel very safe, mouth dry with fear as she licked her lips, opened her mouth and shouted the one word she thought she would never speak again, “Sam!”

****

He was in her sitting room, hunched up on her old sofa, large – maybe larger – than life, ravages of time easy to see on his face, new scars covering up the old innocence, his round boyish face long and slim, his beautiful slanting eyes dark and guarded, but Sam – still her Sam.

“What, what are you doing here?” She was aware of sounding stunned, and confused. He glanced up at her and she couldn’t read the expression in his eyes. His hands rested on his thighs, fingertips callused, nails dirty. He hadn’t said a word yet, just stared at her as if he were drinking her in, a terrible desperation in his appearance, a need that was so powerful she could almost taste it.

“I didn’t know if you still lived here.” Even his voice had changed, low and gravelly, so full of hurt and pain. “I just wanted to see you,” he sounded vulnerable and lonely and her heart twitched and leaped in her breast. “You look good.”

“Thanks.” She flushed. It was doubtful, she was wearing her old robe and had not a speck of make-up on. Her hair was pulled back into a severe bun and she knew there were gray streaks in it, which had not been there before. She was twenty-nine and felt fifty-nine and she wished that she looked beautiful again, looked like the girl he remembered.

“I wasn’t sure you’d even remember me,” Sam said. “It was a long time ago.”

“I’d never forget you,” she blurted out and her cheeks grew redder, feeling foolish that she had laid herself so bare in front of him, given her emotions full range.

“That’s good.” A smile then, small and quick but she saw dimples and it made her feel suddenly warm, happy, traveling back five years in time and seeing the young boy she had been so smitten with.

“Sam.” She was going to ask him again but he put up a big hand and shook his head. She could hear him breathing, see the pulse in his neck jumping and she swallowed, holding out her hand so that he only had to reach up and take it. “Oh, Sam.”

****

His arms were huge as they wrapped around her, stroking her back, her shoulders. Fumbling fingers tangled in her bun and pulled out the pins letting her hair fall down. She groaned into his mouth when he kissed her, her hands everywhere. This was nothing like their, almost, chaste goodbye kiss all those years ago. He seemed to have been holding back then but he certainly wasn’t holding back now, his hands pushing the robe from her body, fingers pinching at her nipples, mouth suckling at them, hot breath on her skin.

They fell onto her bed and she pushed his jeans off his slender hips, wondering at the size of him. She had often dreamed of him, dreamed of him naked in her bed but it had never been like this, hot and hurried, crazy and desperate, her body clenching around him, accepting him, pleasure and pain both.

Afterwards, as they lay in hazy silence she realized he hadn’t once mentioned his brother, hadn’t once mentioned Dean and her heart stuttered in her chest as she remembered what they did, and the risks they took. She saw scars on Sam’s body, the tattoo on his chest, the bruises and the deep groves where he had been hurt and healed again. Dean, she mused, as she tried to sleep, where was Dean?

****

Sam told her a little but she was sure he was holding a lot more back, sparing her. Dean, it seemed, was out of hunting, shacked up with an old flame and her son. Sam had watched over him for a year, watched but not shown himself. Dean believed Sam was dead; Sarah didn’t know why and Sam wasn’t telling her and she knew better than to ask.

“He has his normal,” Sam said, on a sigh, as he lay in her bed, his feet dangling over the ends, his arm tight around her. “I wanted mine.”

She smiled then, remembering.

“Aren’t you frightened? Worried I might suddenly drop dead,” she tried to keep her voice light, her tone teasing. “That is why you wouldn’t commit last time, don’t think I don’t remember.”

“I’m not afraid anymore,” his voice was barely audible. “I’ve – there will always be evil in this world and I’ve had my fair share of it. I’ve seen things and I’ve done things and I will never, ever be the Sam you remember.”

“Sam . . . ?” Her heart ached; was he going to go now, get up and leave her, go back to wherever he had come from.

“Do you still want me, Sarah? Think I’m a catch?” He smiled, slightly, his words echoes of the past.

“I never stopped wanting you,” she whispered and his smile widened, dimples showing, the boy she had known surfacing again, a butterfly emerging from an ugly cocoon.

“Can I stay?” A silly question but one that she did not hesitate to answer.

“Of course,” she replied.

****

It wouldn’t be easy; they both had baggage that was heavy and cumbersome and it would be a while before they could let it go. Sam would never tell her everything, never tell her what had happened in those five years he had been gone, never tell her what had changed him, where he had been, or what he had seen.

One day they might pack up their old SUV and drive down to see Dean and his family; they might tell him that his brother is alive, that he is going to be an uncle, that Sam only wanted to protect him, to make him happy, to give him what he had always wanted.

Sam was her one true love, her Prince Charming come to rescue her from her life of drudgery. He could make sense of her father’s figures, help her make the business a success, he could make her smile, make her laugh, make her scream in ecstasy. He made her feel safe, secure and loved. She made him feel normal.

They might never confront the past but they had the here and the now and it was enough. It was enough.

End


End file.
